Wi-Fi Alliance announces Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6

Wi-Fi Alliance announced WIFi CERTIFIED 6 as part of their WiFi certification program. This latest industry certification program is based on the IEEE 802.11ax standard and will be coming online in Q3 2019.

The goal of WiFi CERTIFIED 6

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, WiFi CERTIFIED 6 will ensure that devices based on IEEE 802.11ax technology meet industry agreed standards for interoperability and security. This certification program supporting next generation WiFi is aimed at guaranteeing optimal capacity, coverage and performance required by users for activities such as streaming ultra-HD movies and mission-critical business applications.

“WiFi continues to be a predominant technology for accessing the internet, with a strong history of success” states Andrew Zignani, senior research analyst at ABI research. “WiFi CERTIFIED 6 will further escalate WiFi’s role, with more than one billion WiFi 6 chipsets expected to be shipped annually in 2022”.

The main benefits of WiFi 6

WiFi 6 delivers improvements and new features that enable wireless devices to operate efficiently, bringing enhanced performance to users in demanding environments that involve a large variety of device types, from IoT and smart home appliances to business running large-scale deployments.

By virtue of WiFi 6, virtual and augmented reality applications, such as healthcare monitoring systems, e-learning and telepresence will become more attainable. WiFi 6 will also provide carriers and WiFi operators with more capabilities to support next-generation connectivity services, such as location-based and bandwidth-intensive applications in public settings, such as retailers, stadiums and transportation hubs.

The main benefits of WiFi 6 include higher data rates, increased performance in congested environments, improved power efficiency and battery life for the devices and increased network capacity with lower latency.

WiFi 6 certification requirements

The latest certification program will ensure that devices are WiFi 6 compatible and support specific features. Wi-Fi Alliance expects manufacturers who already released routers and other wireless devices with WiFi 6 compatibility to certify those devices once the program launches. WiFi 6 certified devices are required to deliver good performance even in dense environments with many devices connected simultaneously.

WiFi 6 includes a variety of technologies, and the support of some of them is mandatory for WiFi 6 devices to be certified: for example, devices must support WPA3 encryption, as well as specific features, such as OFDMA, MU-MIMO and Target Wake Time (TWT).

We expect to see a great number of WiFi CERTIFIED 6 devices being released starting mid-2019. During the CES 2019 event, many manufacturers showcased various WiFi 6 devices, including wireless routers, mesh networking solutions and computers.

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